Intellectual depauperation of evolutionist and atheist scientists shows in the remark by Jerry Coyne on Edward Feser:

Feser (introduced by Coyne as begging the question)

If human beings do have, in addition to their bodily or corporeal activities, an activity that is essentially incorporeal—namely, intellectual activity or thought in the strict sense—then when the corporeal side of human nature is destroyed, it doesn’t follow that the human being as a whole is destroyed. There is an aspect to our nature—the intellect—that can carry on beyond the death of the body, precisely because even before death it was never entirely dependent on the body. This is why there is such a thing as an afterlife for human beings, as there is not for non-human animals.

Coyne overall

He’s again making stuff up: arguing that because we have an incorporeal intellect (which he hasn’t shown), and because by definition an incorporeal intellect lives on after the body dies, then we get to have an afterlife (for which he’s adduced no evidence). And of course that afterlife could simply be a bundle of thoughts floating around the cosmos, not a chair next to Jesus. Where’s the evidence for a Biblical heaven?

The only rational reaction to this type of confabulation is ridicule and utter contempt. Can you imagine grown men arguing about whether dogs, cats, sheep, and cows go to heaven? Yet Feser gets paid for this, and is regarded as one of the most influential philosophers of religion. It all goes to show how intellectually depauperate that discipline is.

Oh boy, Coyne found this after so many months! How long did it take me to see Coyne? Let's see : October 27, 2015 at 1:00 pm (since yesterday).

Coyne α

He’s again making stuff up: arguing that because we have an incorporeal intellect (which he hasn’t shown),

me α

Basic Thomistic metaphysics is hardly one Thomist making things up. And Feser is not obliged to show it on spot, if he has shown it elsewhere, or someone else has.

Coyne β

and because by definition an incorporeal intellect lives on after the body dies,

me β

Yes. Thanks for getting that one right.

Coyne γ

then we get to have an afterlife (for which he’s adduced no evidence).

me γ

Oh boy, has it occurred to Coyne that Feser was not replying to an Atheist totally denying all the words Jesus said about afterlife, but to an Orthodox who was saying it involved dogs and cats too?

So, the evidence is primarly theological, shared between the two debaters. Believe it or not, Coyne-minded people, but Catholics and Orthodox have other things to do than look carefully in the direction of a Coyne!

The position is of course that, though Jesus has promised an afterlife, and though some would like animals in it, since their being is erased, when they die, they cannot be raised.

If on the last day, such and such a dog or guineapig were raised, it would be a new dog or guineapig in the same body, since its individual self would not have existed between its death and the day of judgement. Whereas, an incorporeal intellect does have sth providing continuity between death and the general resurrection and is therefore a candidate for it.

One could reply that God could guarantee the continuity by the method that JW's (who deny incorporeal and immortal intellect) imagine for human resurrection. By God's knowledge of that particular individual, even after it is totally gone from the word. But even then, they might rather be candidates for the new earth than for heaven. Since Heaven was first made with angels, also incorporeal intellects, in it.

Coyne δ

And of course that afterlife could simply be a bundle of thoughts floating around the cosmos, not a chair next to Jesus. Where’s the evidence for a Biblical heaven?

me δ

Metaphysics can provide some corroboration of the Biblical theology, but not at every point.

Thoughts floating around in a bundle through the cosmos ... well, they presuppose a THINKER.

So, "bundle of thoughts", inadequate as it is when soul is in body, remains inadequate when soul is separated from body.

Floating around the cosmos?

Now, that one, including for some with a taste for it spooking close to where died or close to relatives, would be harder to refute on metaphysical grounds alone.

We do believe spooks happen, but they are exceptions. But for this we go to theology, not to pure metaphysics. To Bible, not to pure philosophy.

Coyne ε

The only rational reaction to this type of confabulation is ridicule and utter contempt. Can you imagine grown men arguing about whether dogs, cats, sheep, and cows go to heaven? Yet Feser gets paid for this, and is regarded as one of the most influential philosophers of religion. It all goes to show how intellectually depauperate that discipline is.

One of the most persistent and pernicious myths in the history of astronomy is that Galileo, with his telescopic observations, proved the validity of the Copernican heliocentric hypothesis and thus all opposition to it from that point on was purely based on ignorance and blind religious prejudice.

Hear hear!

In 1651 the Jesuit astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli published his Almagestum Novum or New Almagest , which contains a list of 126 arguments concerning the motion of the earth, i.e. the heliocentric hypothesis, 49 for and 77 against and it is this list that provides the intellectual scaffolding for Graney’s book. Interestingly in discussion on seventeenth-century astronomy Riccioli’s book, and its list, has largely been dismissed or ignored in the past. The prevailing attitudes in the past seem to have been either it’s a book by a Jesuit so it must be religious and thus uninteresting or, as was taught to me, it’s a historical account of pre-Galilean astronomy and thus uninteresting. In fact before Graney and his wife undertook the work this list had never even been translated into English. As to the first objections only a few of Riccioli’s arguments are based on religion and as Graney points out Riccioli does not consider them to be very important compared with the scientific arguments. As to the second argument Riccioli’s account is anything but historical but reflects the real debate over heliocentrism that was taking place in the middle of the seventeenth century.

Rob Knop, Astrophysicist, had apparently been dabbling in the field of History of Science, and ineptly so:

Rob Knop, quoted

Much as… the 17th century Catholic church (sic) just knew that Galileo (and others) were wrong about Heliocentrism, because it’s obvious to everyday observation that the Earth is still and the Sun is going around it. (Also, the Bible says so.) And, just as the leaders of the Catholic church (sic) completely discounted (and indeed refused to look at) Galileo’s observation of Jupiter’s moons orbiting Jupiter (and, crucially, not the Earth)…

Ren. Math.

We are of course here in Draper-White territory, deep in the 19th century and the “war between science and religion”. It is indeed true that the Catholic Church rejected heliocentricity at this time because it conflicted with their theology but as I have pointed out more than once also because there was no proof for the heliocentric hypothesis and in fact serious empirical arguments against it. It is indeed obvious that the world in still and demonstrating otherwise proved to be very difficult, which brings us to the second half of the passage I have quoted above.

Galileo’s observations of Jupiter’s moons do not refute the Ptolemaic geocentric hypothesis or prove the Copernican heliocentric one, as Galileo well knew. In fact he was very careful never to claim that they did. What they do refute is the Aristotelian homocentric hypothesis, which is a completely different kettle of fish and which the contemporary Ptolemaic astronomers were not sorry to see go, as I have already commented long ago.

me

Just adding that, if Tychonian Geocentrism is true, the DAILY movement of any heavenly body is still if not a perfect circle around Earth, at least very close to it.

And as a bonus, this passage by Ren. Math. links to three other goodies:

At first glance it would appear that Marius made his first recorded observation of the Jupiter moons before Galileo but appearances deceive. Marius, a protestant, was still using the Julian calendar whereas Galileo, a Catholic, was using the Gregorian one; making the necessary conversion Marius discovered the moons exactly one day later than Galileo.

Yes, precisely the Marius whom Ren. Math. also speaks of in above.

Ren. Math.

As a sort of footnote I will point out that the German astronomer Simon Marius who discovered the moons of Jupiter one day later than Galileo, and whose observations of them were more accurate than his Tuscan rival’s, also rejected the heliocentric hypothesis preferring instead the Tychonic geocentric-heliocentric model with which the observations were totally compatible. My Internet friend and colleague Professor Christopher Graney is currently involved in a longer research project looking at which model of the solar system was more plausible in the 17th century given the available scientific evidence. Know what? His research shows very clearly that the evidence supports the Tychonic system over the Copernican!